blogging in between sunbeam naps

Menu

About Me

I'm Katje van Loon. I'm a writer, an author, a poet, and a menace to society. I am also an activist, a feminist, a geek, a knitter/crocheter, and many other things. I wear a host of hats. I've been blogging off and on (mostly on) since 2004. One of my first blog iterations was The Canadian Pagan, and I used to go by Jagged on Blogdrive.

This blog, Amoeba Kat Musings, has existed in many different forms and permutations since 2008. It's always been my writer-blog (ie, where I blog as Katje van Loon, Writer), but as time has gone on what I want to blog about as a writer has evolved. It's still evolving.

What you will find here, likely: posts on feminism and dismantling the kyriarchy. Politics. Fat acceptance. Pictures of my dog. Posts about my husband-type-person. Poetry. Me geeking out. Knitting. Occasionally, book reviews. And much, much more.

I try to be diligent about trigger warnings, but I don't put everything behind a cut. Read with caution.

(I do put spoilers behind cuts.)

On a side note, I am also an Ambassador for Barefoot Books, along with my mom. Barefoot Books supplies high-quality children's books via its ambassadors and online shop. I have been a collector of children's books for many years, and I'm excited to grow my collection with the help of Barefoot (and to help others grow their collections, too).

If you want to become an ambassador, click on the picture below to join my team.

If you just want to buy some awesome kids' books, click on this picture:

If you decide to become an ambassador under me, or buy books via the above link, you are supporting me and by extension my writing.

Blog Stats

The Secret Circle

Season 1 of The Secret Circle is on Netflix. I’ve been giving it a watch, as I’ve been snowed in at the Ogre’s place for two days. It’s pretty good; I’m enjoying it so far.

It apparently got canceled, but according to IMDB season 2 starts in January — so perhaps it got picked up again? I don’t know. I hope so, because it is an enjoyable show, and — more importantly — it’s filmed in BC (at least partially). I support almost anything that gets filmed here.

Good things about the show:

It passes the Bechdel test consistently. The teenage characters are remarkably mature while still being believable as teens, which is nice — I get so sick of badly-written teenage characters *cough*Dawn from Buffy*cough*. It doesn’t shy away from darkness — that is, the danger these kids get into is real, and obviously real, early on in the show. The kids are pretty good about discussing consent and boundaries! The way they talk about energy and how it works is fairly accurate, to this witch’s eye, which is nice. At a point where one character suggests using an indigenous headdress as a Halloween costume, the main character shuts her down, saying it’s not cool. (Cue me dying of shock.)

Things that make me give it the side-eye:

Mainly the magic. Yes, it’s nice to see non-Hollywood ways of talking about magic and energy in a show. But. The way these teens do spells is…kind of silly, so far. I’m only about 6 episodes in. Their way of doing spells seems to consist of looking or glaring at things and saying random phrases, seemingly made up on the spot, that…don’t sound too powerful. I guess I just want it to be a little more Hollywood, you know? Use some Latin at least. Something.

The other thing is the opening. When the title comes on the screen the “music” they have with it is the MOST ANNOYING sound ever. It’s a kid, I guess, going “la la la la, la la la la.” ARG.

In fact, here — I found a video of the opening. Give it a listen.

Is it just me? Or is that spectacularly annoying?

Those are really the only huge negatives with the show, so far. I’ve just started episode 7 and will likely finish it later, as it’s time to cook dinner. If everything goes south and the show does a death-spiral with flames y’all will be the first to know.